Network accessible storage

[tthurman]

I would like to move past the limitations of external USB HDD's, have something more robust, as well as more widely available on my home network. I've been looking at some eight bay e-sata drives, and I don't mind the idea of sharing it from my RAID'ed workstation, but at the same time I would rather have a true NAS based enclosure sitting on the network.

Just wondering if anybody here has experience with SOHO based NAS they could share

[DazzleHP]

I want this too in the future, and i have read many member's woes on here too in the past Still, like you said it's gotta be better than them damn externals ARRRGH! And to have a centralised system in the home is where it's at Moving stuff with external drives and usb sticks get's tedious am i right

The only thing i'm sceptical about is "cloud gaming" what with latency and such. I don't know if tech is fast enough yet but with all other media then that's the way i want to go.

[tthurman]

No doubt about that! I've only started looking for a home based solution, but the idea of having some big ole WD Reds, sure sounds nice.

[DazzleHP]

hehe i've heard good things bout the WD Red's but after losing 2 WD's (both Black's) through normal operation within 3 years i must admit i would probably seek an alternative afterall, if a snake manages to bite you twice you really don't want to wave your hand in it's face

[tthurman]

I know what you mean. Anymore, all mechanical drives seem to be luck of the draw. I've got Seagates from 2006 in workstations that are still spinning away, but they too have fallen out of favor. I only mention the WD Reds as that's their intended use.

It appears the SOHO market for this device is still early on.

This Buffalo seems to have become available in late summer, but the details seem rather sketchy and there's not enough user info to go on yet.

Everything else is getting pretty so so reviews at best, and I can't justify a storage shelf here for the house.

[DazzleHP]

I know what you mean. Anymore, all mechanical drives seem to be luck of the draw.

Yeah, and i think i just had bad luck with WD. My Dad had a drive die on him too within 18 months. I have too switched to Seagate, both internal and external and so far so good, but the best drives i ever had were Fujitsu. No lie, swear on my own life as well all that matters to me, i had one that lasted over 10 years! It was puny - only 4gb, but that thing kept on going Also i had external, that i think was around the time that Siemans took over that lasted 8 years.

Why can't stuff be built to that standard anymore?! It all fails within 4 years - not just computer hardware but most electronics it seems. May be i'm showing my age, but there was a time when this stuff lasted

[tthurman]

Planned obsolescence or built-in obsolescence, take your pick, but either way they win!

They're all the same, even up to the big boys NetApp, 3PAR, VNX, stuff isn't supposed to last anymore, three years and the service contract costs more than new, that is if you feel like rolling the dice!

[DazzleHP]

They're all the same, even up to the big boys NetApp, 3PAR, VNX, stuff isn't supposed to last anymore, three years and the service contract costs more than new, that is if you feel like rolling the dice!

I know you're right, i was just ranting in a roundabout manner. I put my "Grumpy Old Baxxxxd" hat on for a sec But it get's frustrating when you're trying to future proof your data, and all that you have "acquired", when you have to factor in that 3-years-till death. UGH! Rant over i promise

[Adultery]

Nas4Free + WD reds = win.

I have a NAS that I use for automated backups and torrents. It's quite nice for a free NAS os.

[DazzleHP]

Yeah, the software side we haven't discussed yet, and i got caught up on the hardware - somewhat hijacked this thread because of that apologies Todd - i gets angry sometimes

[tthurman]

But it get's frustrating when you're trying to future proof your data

Yep, but thankfully they don't all fail, and we've got RAID to lean on for that added "protection" layer. Then again RAID could be nothing more than an evil conspiracy by the storage manufacturers to make you buy more drives, BUT that's an entirely different rant

<no worries man, was good banter while I was researching these.>

<thanks Adultery, I'll be reading up on this for sure. Just during this thread I was realizing the commercially available solutions aren't exactly stellar.>

Edited November 18, 2014 by tthurman

[DazzleHP]

Nas4Free + WD reds = win.

I have a NAS that I use for automated backups and torrents. It's quite nice for a free NAS os.

Also, witnessing first-hand what you, Adultery can do when it comes to real servers and such, i would probably take it as solid Gold that NAS4Free is a goodun

[tthurman]

Also, witnessing first-hand what you, Adultery can do when it comes to real servers and such, i would probably take it as solid Gold that NAS4Free is a goodun

Yeah, but what about those "reds"!

Oh, I need a pot stirring emoticon.

In all seriousness, this looks like an ideal solution as I've got a P45 board with an E8500 and 8 Gig's of RAM not being used. It's a bit suprising that some are suggesting a gig of RAM per TB, but perhaps it's my ignorance showing.

What controller are you using?

[DazzleHP]

Oh, I need a pot stirring emoticon.

You mean, like this?:

Man i am so getting my first warning now, if not an outright banhammer Was worth it But yeah you have a point - 1gb RAM per 1TB storage?! Is that a golden rule or something?

How did it work when terrabytes weren't the norm? Same ratio?

[tthurman]

I'm just scratching the surface, but yeah, that's what I'm picking up in this thread.

Even the WD my Cloud or whatever was criticized for only a 2.0 Ghz CPU, but on the the end of the spectrum was said to be okay with 512 GB DDR3. Perhaps it's CPU or memory, but not necessarily both?

This will give me something to read up on for certain.

[DazzleHP]

Ah, i see. So it seems that the ratio isn't the all-defining factor. It's what you will be using it for, and also how many devices will be utilising it - which makes perfect sense really So i guess that's what you need to figure out?

[tthurman]

Check this Dazzle, looks like a good primer.

[Agrajag]

Here's my NAS experience...

I've got a QNAP TurboNAS and a Netgear ReadyNAS, each with 4x3TB WD Red drives. Both are using JBOD mode, as RAID isn't suitable for my situation.

The QNAP is used to back up 4 drives in my main PC - an assortment of downloaded music/video and the random chaos that is My Documents. By setting up Samba shares on the NAS I can stream the contents over my wired & wireless network and thus listen to albums via my Sonos system and watch video via my media PC. It is switched on all the time, with the drives spinning up and down as needed, but can also wait in standby for a wake on lan packet.

The Netgear is full of off-air TV recordings and is backed up to external drives. The firmware doesn't support spin up/down yet so I have to manually wake it and put it to sleep as required, using the NAS Utils app for Android. Annoying, but it was half the price of the QNAP so I can't really complain.

[tthurman]

Your post got me to looking at the ReadyNAS product, looks pretty nice too. I like the sleek design, and the fact that it's not a huge server tower as well.

I may very well look into them more down the road, but the repurposer in me has to go the route of trying some stuff I have laying around first. If it becomes a big pain in the arse, I'll already have the drives on hand to load into a prebuilt.

QNAP stuff is nice as well, a little to nice right now

Thanks for sharing your setup!

[DazzleHP]

It all looks tasty to me

[Tom Speirs]

I've had good experiences with the higher end Thecus and Synology boxes but they are not cheap. I just rolled the dice with cheap drives and it worked out. I went for cheap drives and purchased a couple of spares but never needed them.

Currently I have Raid 5 with a hot spare.

[Tom Speirs]

PS: Todd. If all goes well with what I was talking about earlier I may be able to help you out with something I have here that I am not using

[tthurman]

I have to admit, a bit of digging into this and I start seeing the plus sides to one, and the likewise the minus to the other. In looking for a really robust solution, Raid 10, or 1 + 0, seems the way to go, but man does it eat the drive space, and I always lean to the side of cautiion, to much so perhaps. This gives me a new appreciation of the decisions going into configuring the big stuff, and why the hot swap is so attractive. Also this makes my raid 1 with the x-copy to the external solution continue to look attractive, well as a cheap alternative anyway.

At first blush, I hadn't considered the power side of building one from recently retired parts , pretty bad since I have to deal with poor power managment alot. Regardless, it makes sense that a purpose driven NAS will be much more power efficent, and in the long haul, most likely represent the best choice.

You've got my attention for sure there Tom